Chapter 58
Jane
The Amphitheatre was deafening. There were so many people that they were reduced to smudges of colours. Asher propped himself up on the fence beside Jane. “You’ll pay for that,” he said around his swollen top lip. Jane ignored him. He looked briefly surprised, but that might just have been a side effect of having his face smashed into a wall.
The other couples emerged from the houses, blinking in the hot sun. The crowds cheered, craning to get a better look. Jane’s face flashed on a vid screen, pale but composed. Asher stared up through his hair, turning sideways so his bloody nose was mostly hidden. It looked as though he was tucking her against him, wanting to be closer. The audience cheered, throwing flowers. “Play the game, Highgate,” he said.
Jane just felt sick.
The pavilion behind Cartimandua framed her with gold. Her hair was woven into a crown again. She looked capable and strong; like someone who could protect the Elysians. “Welcome Elysians,” she announced, her voice like a white bird released off the prow of a ship. It mesmerized, carried the hope of thousands as if it was nothing but more air under its feathers. “Today we are truly one people.”
“We are forging a path to the future. One where we do not rely blindly on numen held greedily by another; but instead where we hold our fates in our own two hands. Such a thing requires courage, and sometimes, sacrifice. But I believe the City is worth it.” She waved her hand and the metal gates set into the main archway creaked up. “And now you see how I put the City before everything, before even my own family.”
Soldiers shoved Caradoc into the amphitheatre. He was streaked with green paint and soaked to the skin. There was a gash dripping blood down his temple. Jane didn’t know where to look; she couldn’t look away but she couldn’t stand to see him there either.
“My brother Caradoc, leader of the Greencoats.”
Jane pressed to the very edge of the platform. She tried to find a pattern in the green splotches, the blood on his shirt, anything. The electricity humming through the wires and electric barbs woven through the fence behind her rose the hairs on the arms.
“And my misguided nephew, Roarke.” Cartimandua continued, looking chagrined. “I would save them if I could, but they have acted against the Directorate. They would tell you our brave Jacks are not strong enough to be heroes. But I know different. Green Jacks are the true selfless heroes. And by denying that, Greencoats steal food from your own mouths, and that I will not stand for. I swore an oath to stand for this City, and stand I shall.”
Caradoc and Roarke were joined by a ragged group; Saffron, Shanti, Anya and Nico, Livia.
And Kiri. She was bruised, with stitches on her face and arms. Her dress was torn but the beads still flashed. They wouldn’t have let her wear her Seedsinger chiton, no now.
“They must be punished with this City sitting witness. After all, what is the point of finding new Jacks, if I can’t protect them for you? Rebels, Ferals, Greencoats---none can break us. Today we will have new champions strong enough to wear the mask, and today, we will have justice.”
A portcullis rose on the other side of the amphitheatre. The crowd waited expectantly, ravenously. There was already blood in the sand from previous fights. Warriors streamed in, armed with maces and swords and clubs. The horses spat sand from under giant hooves. They weren’t Protectorate soldiers, trained and orderly. These were men and women talented at violence. They were fighting to be the next Jack, fighting to kill Jane’s friends, fighting because they wanted to.
She was glad the others were at least allowed weapons as well. She supposed it wouldn’t have been an entertaining fight without them. A massacre did nothing for morale, but a sacrifice would make the crowd feel fierce and untouchable.
A small woman wearing leather went for Caradoc. Her slender swords sliced at him and though he was fast, she was faster. She kept advancing until his shirt was shredded, the skin stained red beneath. He finally went low and Saffron whipped one of her knives at her.
Roarke and Nico were shoulder to shoulder, blocking sword strikes from above and flashing hooves below. Nico went down, disappearing from view. Jane gasped, hands tightening on the fence. She couldn’t see him, only more weapons, more horses, more warriors. She couldn’t see Kiri either. The crowd thundered behind her, pressing against them like the sea.
The fight went on and Cartmandua’s examples weren’t falling as quickly as she’d anticipated. The audience stamped their feet, beginning to favour the underdogs. At a signal from Cartimandua the warriors who were still able to move, melted away. Kiri was on her knees, alive but wounded. Anya gripped her spear, the sunlight flashing off the copper, Shanti at her side. Nico lay with his leg bent at the wrong angle and his chest a raw mess of flesh and splintered bones.
Numen shot up Jane’s spine, as if she didn’t already see flashes of blood on the sand and Saffron lying too still again every time she closed her eyes. And abruptly, Jane couldn’t watch anymore. She couldn’t—wouldn’t—stand apart and read the omens in her friends’ blood. Not when she could make those same omens a weapon. Not when she could help.
The house was circled with barbed wire and electricity to keep the crowds from coming too close but there was nothing to stop her from dropping down the front of the platform and onto the sand. Because it was madness, suicide. Who would choose it over the luxury of the house rising up behind her?
Jane swung over the decorative fence, dropping into the amphitheatre. Her left ankle throbbed dangerously, and refused to take her full weight. The crowd surged forward, desperate to see what would happen now. Jane limped towards her friends, finally feeling numen coursing inside her. She couldn’t look at Nico, it made her breath stutter in her throat.
Saffron was the first to greet her. “You’re an idiot.”
“But I missed you,” Jane returned. She tried to smile because, under the circumstances, it was the most defiant act she could imagine.
“Like I said. Idiot.”
Caradoc shifted so his back was to hers. “Something worse is coming.”
The growling came from everywhere. The arches were empty, iron portcullis gates slamming shut. The sand shifted under their feet. “What’s happening?” Kiri asked.
Jane steadied her. “I’m so sorry.”
“Sorry later,” Caradoc snapped. “Fight now.”
The trap door opened under the sand, lifting platforms into the arena. Acid-green eyes flashed. “Cerberus,” Saffron swore.
Directorate videos hadn’t truly been able to convey their strength and their alienness. Jane mind staggered, trying to associate them to dogs, boars, anything familiar, but the combination was too grotesque. Powerful muscles hunched under fur, lips peeled off teeth the size of icicles. Even the audience members, safe behind their fences, leaned back slightly.
In seconds, jaws clamped around Roarke’s arm, spattering saliva and blood. Saffron jabbed a dagger into the back of the Cerberus’ neck and it screamed, shrill and sharp. Roarke wrapped the ruin of his sleeve around the wound. The Cerberus took off, running erratically. Shanti gave a shout of warning.
Anya planted the end of her spear and leapt into air, her sandals skimming its knotted spine when it charged blindly at her. Jane wasn’t sure if there were spikes suddenly protruding from the fur. She didn’t have time to wonder, as the Cerberus, denied its first victim, turned baleful eyes on her and Kiri, huddled together. Numen ignited Jane’s spine until she might have had spikes of her own. There were only shadows and light and the tingle in her legs, urging her to move. She dodged, dragging Kiri with her. Kiri was slow, bleeding from various wounds. The Cerberus watched her hungrily, nostrils flaring. When it attacked, Caradoc was suddenly here, knocking them back. Jane she landed in the sand between his feet. Maddened by the blood and the shouting, stamping crowd, the other Cerberus pressed closer, snarling.
I am the earth where seeds of wisdom grow.
“On your left,” Jane shouted,
and Caradoc shifted to block. He had a short sword; enough to discourage an attack but not enough to truly stop it.
“Saffron, drop!” Jane ordered, feeling her pupils go white. Time became veils of light and colour. Saffron dropped and the Cerberus who had sighted her, jostled into another, who snapped back with a crack of teeth. They turned on each other in a fury of jaws and claws.
The battle continued, too slow and too quick, as Jane struggled to see an escape. She scanned the amphitheatre, dark arches, butter-coloured stones, flash of weapons. Cartimandua stood on her dais, silently furious. The barbed wire at her feet looked like metal vines.
Red dust, light through slats of wood, blood in the sand.
Jane blinked. Light through slats of wood. The trap doors had closed after regurgitating monsters onto the amphitheatre floor. But they were still there, and one of them was lit from beneath. Light shot through the gaps, just like the omen.
“We need to get to the door,” Jane shouted at Caradoc.
Jane dragged Kiri across the bloodied sand. The audience shouted excitedly, assuming the two girls were about to get eaten. Caradoc stabbed a Cerberus in the eye. Blood spattered on the back of Jane’s leg. His teeth followed, but it was a graze, not a full bite. It stomped, whining with panic and pain.
Anya smashed her spear down into the spine of a soldier aiming at Shanti. He crumpled, silently. Shanti smiled her thanks, just as he rolled over, blood sputtering from his lips. He had just enough strength left to fire his gun. The bullet tore through Anya’s eye. Shanti leapt forward, screaming, but it was too late. Blood pooled in the sand under Anya’s head.
Shanti tried to drag Anya’s body away from the charging Cerebus. Jane grabbed her arm. Shanti snarled, drawing back to hit her. “Anya wanted you to live,” Jane shouted, ducking her head down but not letting go. “That was her point. We have to go, now.”
Shanti finally stepped away from her dead spear-sister.
Jane hated to leave Nico behind too. They deserved better, even dead. Saffron kicked a Cerberus in the nose when it snapped its jaw at Roarke’s leg.
“I’m getting the hang of th----.”
The trap door opened beneath them, dropping them into darkness.
Green Jack Page 58
